The New MAGROUND Website: Built for How Visual Production Actually Works

We’ve rebuilt the MAGROUND website from the ground up. Not as a redesign exercise. Not to chase trends. But to reflect how visual production really works today.

Over the years, MAGROUND has grown into a large archive of real locations used by creatives around the world. Automotive, CGI, advertising, design, content production. Different disciplines, same challenge: creating convincing visuals efficiently, without losing creative control.

The new platform is a direct response to that reality.

A Platform Built Around Real Locations

At the core of MAGROUND is photography. Real places, captured with production in mind. This hasn’t changed. Every image in the archive is still about structure, perspective, light and usability. Locations that work as backplates, references or starting points for further work. Locations that can carry a visual idea.

What has changed is how you can work with them. The new website is designed to make it easier to find the right location and easier to adapt it to your specific needs once you’ve found it.

Faster Search, Clearer Decisions

One of the main goals of the rebuild was speed. Not just technical speed, but decision speed. The new search experience is simpler and more focused. Filters, previews and collections are designed to help you narrow down options quickly instead of scrolling endlessly.
The platform is no longer just an archive you browse. It’s a working tool.

Why We Integrated AI and Why We Did It Carefully

AI is everywhere right now. Most of the time, it’s added because it’s possible, not because it’s useful. We took a different approach. Instead of asking “Where can we add AI?”, we asked “Where does production actually hurt?”

The answer was clear: flexibility. A location is perfect, but the weather is wrong. The location is right, but it needs to be night. The scene works, but it needs a car, people or subtle changes to fit a specific market. These are not creative failures. They are normal production realities.
That’s exactly where AI comes in on MAGROUND.

One Location, Multiple Variations

With the new integrated AI tools, a single real location can now be adapted in multiple ways.

• Change season or weather.
• Move from day to night.
• Adjust mood and atmosphere.
• Add vehicles, people or details that support the story.

All of this starts from a real, copyright-safe image from the archive. The goal is not to replace photography or CGI. The goal is to reduce friction.

Instead of reshooting, rebuilding or compromising, you can explore variations quickly and decide what works best for your project.

Creative Control Stays With You

A key principle behind the new platform is control. AI on MAGROUND is not a black box that makes decisions for you. It’s a tool that responds to your direction.

• You choose the location.
• You define what needs to change.
• You decide when a result is good enough or when it needs refinement.

This keeps the creative process where it belongs: with the creative.

Designed for Production

Everything about the new website is built with production workflows in mind. From image previews and lightbox sharing to presentation-ready views for client reviews. From consistent file structures to clear licensing information. This is not a showcase platform. It’s a working environment.

Whether you’re a CGI artist, an art director, a creative producer or part of an in-house brand team, the platform is designed to fit into existing pipelines rather than forcing a new one.

A New Architecture for the Future

Behind the scenes, the platform has been completely rebuilt. A new technical architecture allows us to move faster, improve performance and add features without breaking existing workflows. It also means better stability and scalability as the archive and the AI tools continue to grow.

This rebuild is not the end of something. It’s the foundation for what comes next.

Starting Fresh

Because of the new architecture, existing users are asked to create a new account on the platform. We know this adds a small extra step, but it allows us to move forward with a cleaner, more robust system that will benefit everyone in the long run. New accounts come with free AI credits, so you can explore the new tools without friction.

Real Locations First. Always.

If there’s one idea behind the new MAGROUND website, it’s this:
Start with reality.

Real locations provide grounding, credibility and visual truth. AI then becomes a way to adapt that reality to different needs, markets and ideas. Not because it’s possible. But because it’s useful.

Explore the New MAGROUND

The new platform is live, and we’ll continue to evolve it based on real-world feedback from creatives and production teams.

If you haven’t explored it yet, start with a location you like and see how far you can take it.

One place. Many Directions. That’s what the new MAGROUND is built for.